Genesis 37:12-36: Joseph Sold into Slavery
Bible Essentials: Set 3, Lesson 25
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Opening
Individuals: Take time to think back about your past week. Where have you seen God work in your life or answer prayer? Write down any prayer requests you have.
Group: Open the study by sharing life updates, reviewing highs and lows of your past week, or sharing prayer requests and praises.
Icebreaker: What was a time in your life when you had to leave what happened in God’s hands?
All: Begin the study with a word of prayer, asking God to open your heart for today’s study. You can also pray for any prayer requests now, or save that for the end.
Study
Read today’s passage: Genesis 37:12-36.
12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, 13 and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”
“Very well,” he replied.
14 So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16 He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”
17 “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”
21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.
28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
29 When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. 30 He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
31 Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. 32 They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”
33 He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”
34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. 35 All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.
36 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.
What is the context for this passage?
In last week’s lesson, we transitioned from the story of Jacob to the story of Joseph. Joseph was the firstborn of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel, and Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons. This caused animosity and jealousy among the brothers. Joseph brought bad reports about his brothers to his dad, and the brothers hated Joseph and treated him poorly. After a couple dreams that implied that Joseph’s brothers would bow down to him, Joseph’s brothers hated him all the more. That hatred sparked the events in this week’s passage.
Read the passage again.
Explore a different version if you have one available. If you are online, here is Genesis 37 in NIV through Bible Gateway. You can change the version by using the dropdown menu at the top right of the page.
Try to summarize the passage in your own words.
Answer these three questions about the passage:
1. What does the passage say about God?
God is always working things out for his own purposes. Sometimes in our darkest days, we can’t see what God is doing. I’m sure Joseph felt some fear and wondered what God was doing as he was first thrown into a cistern and then sold into slavery. But God had a purpose in all of it. And God’s purpose will always win.
2. What does the passage say about people?
Joseph’s brothers were shepherds, but he was not. In line with being the favored son, Joseph was not given the task of being a shepherd. In Bible times, shepherds were often seen with disdain. It was a lowly and hard job. It seems fitting that this task was reserved for the non-favored sons.
Jacob used Joseph as a messenger to check on his brothers. Shepherds often wandered the countryside with their sheep in search of green pastures and water. They could be away from home for long stretches of time. So Jacob used Joseph as a messenger to go check on his brothers every once in a while.
Sometimes people have to stop and ask for directions. We’ve all been there on this one! Joseph set out to search for his brothers, and they were not where he had been told they would be. So he asked a man he encountered if he knew where they were. Fortunately, the man sent him in the right direction.
Hatred can make people want to do evil things. When his brothers saw Joseph coming, they started devising a plan to get rid of him. They wanted to kill him. Although they ended up not following this plan, they did sell him into slavery. Their hatred of Joseph was deep.
Not all the brothers wanted Joseph dead. Although most of the brothers wanted Joseph dead and out of their life, two brothers stood up for him. Reuben (the oldest) convinced the brothers to not kill Joseph but to instead throw him into a cistern, planning to later come and rescue him. Judah (Leah’s fourth son, and the son through whom Jesus would come) also came up with an alternative to killing Joseph—selling him into slavery.
People often make decisions for their own gain. Although Judah’s suggestion to sell Joseph into slavery might have been due to some compassion for his “own flesh and blood,” greed was a primary motivator. He said, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?” Judah wanted to get something out of the deal.
People panic when the unexpected happens. I don’t know where Reuben was while the rest of the brothers were selling Joseph to the Midianites. Seems like a caravan of merchants and the process of pulling Joseph out of the cistern and selling him would have been a bit obvious. But somehow, Reuben missed all of that, and when he came to find Joseph no longer in the cistern, he panicked a bit.
People use deceit to cover up their poor choices. Once his brothers had done their evil deed of selling Joseph, they came up with a plan to cover up what they had done. They slaughtered a goat and covered his ornate robe in it to make it look like Joseph had been attacked by an animal and killed. This would absolve them of any responsibility for Joseph’s death in their father’s eyes. Then they took that story back to their father.
People mourn the death of those they love. When Jacob was told that his beloved son was dead, he mourned for many days and refused to be comforted.
3. What does the passage say about God’s plan?
God’s plan was to get Joseph to Egypt. Although Joseph may have planned a different series of events for himself, God used Joseph’s brothers’ jealousy to get Joseph to Egypt where God would later use him in a mighty way. God needed Joseph in Egypt, and he set up the circumstances to get him there.
How does the passage fit into the overarching story of the Bible?
Sometimes it’s easier to understand a passage if you have a little outside knowledge from other passages in the Bible. This section will help provide that outside perspective.
God had a plan for Joseph in Egypt. Although it was hard to see God’s plan in the early years that Joseph was in Egypt, God’s plan became clear later in Joseph’s life. Joseph eventually rose to have great authority in Egypt, and he saved Egypt from famine through his wise planning. This plan also saved his own family, who came to Egypt for food during the famine. Although being sent to Egypt seemed like the result of evil on the part of his brothers, God used it to fulfill his divine plan. It’s humbling to know that God can use people in spite of our own selfishness and sin.
In the same way, even though Jesus’ death on the cross seemed like the result of the evil plan of the religious leaders, God used it to fulfill his plan for Jesus to pay the penalty for sin for all people and to conquer death and Satan. Although what happened in Joseph’s life was outside of his control, what happened to Jesus was all within his control. If he had wanted, Jesus could have stopped his torture and crucifixion at any time. But he chose to go to the cross for us. He chose to endure the torture and humiliation and shame so that we wouldn’t have to. That is the glory of the gospel story.
Discussion
Individual: Answer the following questions thoughtfully for yourself.
Group: Pose these questions for discussion.
All: If you are willing to share, I’d love to hear your thoughts to these questions. Feel free to use the comment section to start a discussion about this passage.
What else strikes you about this passage?
How does the passage affect how you view God? How you view yourself?
How does this passage affect how you will live your life?
Additional Study
For additional study related to this topic, read Acts 7:9-16.
Premium Resources
For Bible Essential studies, you can use my thoughts as your devotional, or you can download and use the journaling sheet to work through the passage on your own. If desired, you can then compare your thoughts to mine. Journal sheets can be downloaded and used now or later. They can be printed and filled in by hand or saved and filled out electronically. Journal sheets are available for individual or group use.
If you plan to lead a group study, a PowerPoint presentation is also available.
You can access these resources by clicking here: Genesis 37 Resources
Or you can download the journal sheets here*:
*Substack doesn’t support PowerPoint file downloads yet, so if you want to access the PowerPoint file for group study, you will need to download it from the resource page linked above.
Praise the Lord
God often uses the hard times in our lives to accomplish his will. I think God used my cancer and my need for radiation for the purpose of my meeting Jane. I had the opportunity to lead her to the Lord before she died.